by M C Rowley
“Here,” she said.
Acosta took a long draw. “It can’t be,” he said again. “We found…”
“Found what?”
“Remains,” Acosta said. He took another hit. “Limbs. When we busted the Sons, we searched the ranches and found vats of acid mostly, but also limbs and other remains. Some fresh, relatively. They belonged to the daughters and the wife. We found Andino’s arm.”
Rose nodded. “They cut it off. He got away.”
“How do you know?”
“Long story. Sorry, Agent Acosta, but can you tell us what happened?”
“I wasn’t there, of course. But we questioned the Sons hard and got most of the information double-checked by Casas, who took the fall. According to them, they had their nasty fun with the daughters, then killed them in front of Andino and his wife, then did the same to the wife, leaving Andino for last.”
“Jesus,” said Rose.
“It’s about revenge,” said Jean.
Acosta finished the whiskey. “Where is Andino now?”
“We don’t know.”
“I need to make a call,” said Acosta, suddenly getting up. “I need to tell the boys.”
Then it hit Jean like a brick to the face. Andino. The DEA. The CIA. The cartel. The Founders.
“Sir,” she said to Rose. “We have to leave. Now.”
Rose nodded. “Agent Acosta, thank you for this.”
And they got up and left the room, then the house, and half-jogged to the SUV.
Jean sat in the passenger seat and looked at Rose. “Reynolds wanted us to find this out. He wanted us to pass on the info to the DEA. I messed up.”
Rose shook his head. He was tapping away on his phone, reporting back to Langley.
Rose looked at Jean. “You see Acosta’s reaction?”
Jean nodded. “His surprise was genuine, I thought.”
“Agreed. But he panicked somewhat when he found out. I’m gonna get the guys upstairs to check his accounts. Fifty bucks says he’s hiding something.”
“That’s the thing. Andino wants revenge. But against who?”
“Everyone,” said Rose. “Including us.”
He grabbed his phone again and tapped it and held it to his ear. “Good morning, sir. We need a favor.”
He explained the need for a deep dive into former DEA agent Craig Acosta’s finances. He defended the move a little, and eventually smiled and said “Yes, sir” and hung up.
“We’ll know more in twenty minutes.”
“That quick?”
Rose just winked.
They drove around the block and parked and waited for the intel. It took twenty-five minutes in the end before Rose’s phone started vibrating. He picked it up.
“Yes.”
He listened for a long while and Jean watched his face. Then he said thanks and ended the call.
“Well?”
“We’re going back to Acosta’s,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because Acosta has been receiving payments of a hundred thousand dollars every month from an anonymous source for the last four years.”
“Of course.”
Rose said, “Check the GPS on Eleanor’s phone.”
Jean opened the app and checked.
“Where are they?”
Jean said, “Chiapas.”
Rose nodded. “We need to get there today. After we’ve dealt with Acosta.”
He phoned Langley and chartered a plane immediately. They would fly in three hours.
“Call Eleanor Dyce now. We need them to lure Morales.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The old lady stared at us. I looked across at Eleanor, but she was staring back at the lady, a furious energy burning off her. At that moment, a light buzz followed by three rings came from Eleanor’s pocket. The cell phone Jean had given her.
I looked at the woman. “Can you untie us so we can answer?”
The lady, much to my surprise, nodded and walked to Eleanor. She picked the phone out of her pocket, clicked a button, and brought it to my ear.
“Hello?”
Jean was on the other end of the line. “Why are you in Chiapas?”
I wondered for a second how she knew that and realized it was the GPS.
“Trying to find our son and granddaughter. A lot better than you could have helped us.”
“Dyce, don’t push it. We helped you. You’re in the wrong place.”
“No shit.”
“We found Reynolds’ identity. He worked for the cartel. Years back. He took the name from a shipping company at the port of Veracruz. We think he’s there, with Jairo.”
“Is that where he’s holding Estrella?”
“We don’t know,” said Jean. “I’m just sharing the information.”
I nodded and said, “I understand. We understand.”
“We’re coming for you,” said Jean. “Don’t move.”
I almost smiled. “That’s not a problem.”
Eleanor was staring at me.
Then the lady pulled the phone back and clicked it off and put it on the table behind her.
Eleanor said to me in a hushed voice, “What did they say?”
“Jean and Rose found Reynolds. They think he’s in Veracruz, with Jairo.”
“And?”
“They’re coming for us.”
The lady stared at us with suspicion.
“Necesito ir a los sanitarios,” said Eleanor.
I need the bathroom.
The lady hesitated, then stepped forward with caution toward Eleanor. She was about half a meter away when Eleanor raised her knee and, in a split second, brought it crashing into the lady’s knee. She crumpled into a heap, letting out a pathetic yelp on the way down.
Then Eleanor tipped herself over, chair and all, on top of the woman, like a wrestler pinning her opponent.
“Cut me free, bitch.”
I sat there staring at the scene: my wife tied to a chair and lying on top of a lady almost double her age.
The woman groaned from underneath.
“Cut me free or I’ll fucking choke you here.”
I noticed Eleanor had her elbow across the lady’s throat. Any more pressure and she would suffocate.
“Now!”
The old lady relented and made to move. Eleanor released her weight and allowed the lady to get up. Then she stood and crowded the lady, stooped like a cartoon turtle with the chair as a shell on her back. The lady could not make a move; Eleanor had her pinned.
The woman took a small knife from her pocket and released the blade. I waited for her to try to stab Eleanor, but she didn’t. Instead, she reached around Eleanor’s back and cut the ties. The plastic chair fell to the floor and Eleanor stood.
“Give me that,” said Eleanor, taking the knife from the lady, whose expression had morphed from placid contempt to quivering fear.
“This is for my son!”
It was too late. I could do nothing to stop my wife plunging the knife into the lady’s left eye, so deep her fist banged the socket and blood oozed over her knuckles.
I shouted, “El, no!”
But my wife was possessed, stabbing again and again. Blood squirted from where the woman’s face once was.
“El! Stop!”
Eleanor stopped, breathing deeply, as the lady’s body slumped to the floor.
“What the fuck?”
Eleanor looked at me. Her eyes had lost their sparkle. Black circles looked back at me.
“I’m sorry, Scott.”
I had no words.
“She took babies for the cartel, like they took Jairo all those years ago. She deserved it.”
“El,” I said, “you killed her.”
Then she walked toward the door, leaving me behind, still tied to the damned chair.
“El?”
My wife stopped and her shoulders slumped.
“Scott, you will understand this eventually. But I’m leaving without you.”
I tried to ge
t up, but the turtle position felt stupid. I sat back down.
“What?”
“This is about our son. First and foremost. I believe in him. I always have. Even when you thought he was long dead, I always knew.”
“But El, we had nothing.”
“You thought that. It’s okay. I’m not mad anymore. But I have to help Jairo. And Mr. Reynolds.”
I sat back and stared at her. “Mr. Reynolds?”
Eleanor nodded. “You don’t know, Scott, but he’s a good man. Not so different to us. He’s helping Jairo. He was hurt, badly. Like we were. By people like this scumbag,” she said, flinging a look at the lady’s corpse. “Reynolds, or whatever his real name is, is helping Jairo to become a powerful person. What mother wouldn’t want that for her son?”
I stared. “What the fuck are you talking about, El?”
“Reynolds wants revenge. Against the cartels. Against the DEA. Against the CIA. Against the greedy bankers in New York. Against all of them. He’s gonna bring them all down. It’s what they deserve. All those years, they never helped me find our son. And you know what?”
I said nothing.
She said, “I agree with Reynolds. And I’m going to help him do it.”
I felt my chest tighten. “You’ve been speaking with the guy we’ve been trying to find? This whole goddamn time?”
“I agree with what he’s trying to do.”
“He killed Vanessa. She would’ve been our daughter-in-law. Estrella’s mother!”
Eleanor wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze was turned downward.
I said, “And what about her, little Estrella? How could you let him keep her like that?”
“We don’t know he has her.”
I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t express what I needed to say to her. I’ll admit it, I felt hatred on some level. Not of her directly—I loved Eleanor. And not directly of Mr. Reynolds or Jairo either. But hatred of the relationship that existed between my wife and our son. And not me. Was this just jealousy? Would I have supported the same course of action if I’d been filled in?
My answer to that was no.
I was staring at a woman who was not my wife. Her obsession had become a disease.
Hatred faded away and sorrow replaced it.
“El, please.”
She turned and unlocked the door, and then opened it and walked out into the daylight.
Chapter Forty-Six
As Jairo drove the truck over a small hill that led them away from Veracruz city, they could smell the sea air. The main port of Veracruz lay directly ahead, as the crow flew, but when they reached a small crossroads, Reynolds directed Jairo to the left, away from the busy harbor.
Jairo knew why Reynolds had chosen this place, of course, as did Luciana. It was where the Sons of No One had murdered his wife and children and almost done the same to him. Jairo remembered that day, five years ago, well. He thought about it as they drove along. He didn’t care what Reynolds’ motives were, but they concerned him. Jairo knew what he had to deliver for his part of the bargain and was pretty sure Reynolds would deliver his part, too.
But in the world in which Jairo had grown up, you never trusted anyone until you had the dollars in your hand.
They’d left the last remaining built-up areas of the city and were now driving parallel to the coastline and the black sands of Veracruz, visible in the moonlight. Then the coastline disappeared behind thick trees as the road went inland for a way.
“Here,” said Reynolds, pointing to a small driveway cut into the shrubbery.
Jairo pulled in. The old rusted gates that had stood tall had been smashed aside, leaving only the arch that had housed them. It read: REYNOLDS SHIPPING CO.
Jairo pulled onto the track and they drove down it for 500 meters, until they saw the dilapidated building ahead—a huge structure, long, dominating the shorefront but in ruins now. They peered closely and saw hundreds of black dots scattered in and around the shadows of the building. Some streetlights were on, just barely illuminating the scene. The soldiers of Código X awaited them.
“Pull over here,” said Reynolds.
They were still a hundred meters from the building. Jairo pulled the truck over and killed the engine. They sat and watched as the men gathered in groups of five or six and started walking toward the new arrivals. Jairo did a fast head count. At least sixty men, each holding a rifle or a pistol. The men moved closer.
Reynolds withdrew a phone and swiped and tapped it. “Ready,” he said.
Jairo opened his door, and Reynolds got out after him while Luciana got down from the passenger side. They walked around to the front of the truck.
The first guy from Código X’s founding and controlling unit stopped walking and looked at Jairo.
“¿Donde está Jorge, cabrón?”
Where’s Jorge?
Jairo realized he meant X04 and replied in Spanish, “He got his payment and left.”
The guy’s friends were now around him—his crew. He kept doing the talking. “Payment?”
Jairo nodded, a thin smile on his face. “That’s right.”
The men’s eyes drifted between Jairo, Luciana, and Reynolds.
“Who’s he?”
“He’s Mr. Reynolds.”
The man stepped toward Reynolds, who kept still and held the stare.
“Nos chingaste, cabrón.”
You fucked us over.
Reynolds held up his hands and spoke in perfect Spanish. “On the contrary, I’ve come to give you what’s yours.”
This did little to calm the Código X spokesman, whose gun rose slightly in his hand, finger on trigger.
“You owe us a lot. You made too many promises.”
Jairo stepped forward slightly and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hear us out, man. If you don’t like what you hear, you can shoot us here and now.”
The man paused for a beat, still staring at Reynolds. Then he said, “Tell us, and tell us quick.”
Reynolds nodded. “The funds that were allocated to your organization are still under my control. But your old boss screwed things up.”
“Who? Jorge?”
“Yes, X04. He was a snitch. DEA. Earlier this week, they busted hundreds in your distribution network. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt the repercussions.”
The man nodded grimly, disbelief spreading across his features.
“So, I moved the money as fast as I could. To an offshore account. My plan is to disperse it to you in individual payments.”
The man’s brain went into overdrive as he tried to compute the news that his compadre was a rat and that he was about to become stinking rich. Around him he had his crew of ten; the rest of the men were sitting around behind, surrounding the building.
The man came closer. “How much is left?”
Reynolds smiled. “A billion dollars.”
“Between all of us?”
Reynolds looked past the man and then back into his eyes. “Or, of course, as you see fit.”
The man nodded and then shared a look with his crew. They seemed to be communicating silently. Little nods and winks were exchanged. Jairo, Luciana, and Reynolds stayed still.
Then the man turned back to them. “How does it work?”
Reynolds said, “You give us your account SWIFT codes and IBAN numbers, and we set up a secure VPN internet connection. I make a few phone calls. You get your money.”
“How do we know whether you keep any of it?”
“You can speak with the bank yourself. They’re Swiss. Very discreet, but forthcoming with their customers.”
The man rubbed his face for a while, then said, “Okay. We’ll make it a little less complicated.”
He turned and whistled hard at the rest of the men.
“¡Todos, acércanse!”
Everyone, come here.
One by one, the men started to come closer, curious, watchful, and nervous.
“!Vénganse¡”
Then he sh
outed his instructions: “We have negotiated a ceasefire with these people. Put your weapons in a pile here.”
He pointed at the middle ground between him and them. Despite a few murmured questions, they followed the order and threw their assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns into a pile. Now Jairo, Reynolds, Luciana, and the Código X crew stood on one side, while the rest of the Código X men stood on the other. The crew kept their guns in their hands.
The man turned to Jairo again and said, “This will make the transfers less complicated. And should deter you from thinking about fucking with us.”
Then he turned, quick and steady, and nodded to his crew. “Do it!”
And they started gunning down their own men. The sound ripped through the night like the atmosphere itself was breaking up. Jairo, Luciana, and Reynolds dived to the side as the ten main men mowed down their colleagues in a bloody mess. After one whole minute, there was silence.
Then the lead guy turned to Reynolds again. “Now we’re ready for the transfers. One billion dollars divided ten ways. Between us.”
Reynolds used his one arm to get to his knees, then his feet. Jairo and Luciana also stood.
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“And I want to talk to the fucking bank and make sure you’re not hiding anything else.”
Reynolds nodded. “Of course.”
“Where do we do this?”
Reynolds said, “Inside the warehouse. I have a connection set up.”
The man nodded. “Well then, what are you waiting for?”
Reynolds started walking to the building. The ten men pushed Jairo and Luciana with their gun muzzles in line. Together, they walked to the building.
Inside, the warehouse had been gutted many years previously. It looked entirely different from when Jairo, and Reynolds, had last been here.
They stepped across the flat cement floor toward the only door still on its hinges, at the back. Reynolds pulled a key from his pocket that dangled from a small keyring and unlocked the door.
“Here,” he said, and he ushered first Jairo and then Luciana into the small office—and then, suddenly, he jumped through himself and slammed the door shut behind him, closing the three of them inside and leaving the remnants of Código X outside in the main space.
The door had a fast-locking system on the inside and Jairo noted the metal plating that had been installed around its frame—recently, judging by the shine of the steel.
